Ah, ceylon. I didn’t grow up drinking black tea, and so this doesn’t really speak of nostalgia or anything to me. I think I might have tried one of Adagio’s ceylon teas at one point near the start of my getting into teas, but I just never bothered trying to get a baseline for this flavor.

So, I got my order from Tavalon in the other day, and I decided to pop this open.

It isn’t complex, but ceylon doesn’t strike me as a tea that is trying to be. It’s simply there. Some days, that’s what I want. I also think that if I EVER get around to playing around with adding things into my tea, this is the one that I am going to want to use.

It’s also nice to know with certainty that this is what I’ve been tasting in all of those flavored black teas I’ve since had, and I now feel like I might be able to pick it out of blends more easily.

This order also marked the arrival of my brand new tea stick, which I used to brew this. YAY. As we currently don’t have the ability to review tea ware, I’m just going to write a couple of thoughts on here.

1. It’s pretty solid. I’ll admit to thinking that the mesh sliding part would be a little flimsier, but I was pleasantly surprised to open the plastic cylinder to discover some pretty solid construction.

2. It recommends just scooping the tea out of the tin, but I’m not really sure on the logistics of this quite yet. It’s a bit unwieldy as a scoop, and if I eventually begin weighing my tea out like I think I will, I won’t be able to do that anyway.

3. The holes in the mesh are rather big, and the chamber is obviously more limited than a pot or a basket infuser, so that limits the kind of tea I’m going to be able to use it for. It’s not big enough to let, say, an oolong expand. And any teas where you notice small bits would not be ideal for this.

4. It’s rather long, so the hook at the end is currently of no use to me as it’s longer than any mugs I use are tall, but it’s not something that gets in the way or anything and it was a thoughtful thing to include.

Anyhow, I really like it. And when using it to brew this tea, it worked splendidly.